Earlier last week, Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel reaffirmed the government’s commitment to end modern slavery in her speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. In the same speech, Patel committed to “investing in the next generation” and to protecting children from exploitation, in particular girls.
Faced with this outpouring of determination, it is difficult to understand why so many refugee children have been left to fend for themselves on their difficult journeys through Europe. Even Kevin Hyland, the government’s own anti-slavery commissioner, warned that the government’s failure to act promptly left unaccompanied refugee children exposed to a high risk of modern slavery and exploitation.
“Unaccompanied girls don’t stay unaccompanied long”
There are an estimated 88,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Europe. Whilst there is little gender disaggregated data on refugee children, a general increase in female migrants has been noted since the beginning of the year. Speaking at an event co-hosted by CARE and Women for Refugee Women after her return from Greece, Labour MP Yvette Cooper’s comment on the absence of unaccompanied girls in refugee camps provoked the bone-chilling reply that “unaccompanied girls don’t stay unaccompanied long”.
Women and girl refugees face the same challenges as male refugees coming to Europe but they are also at increased risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Back in August, the International Organization for Migration raised the alert about the sharp increase of migrant women and girls coming from Nigeria to Italy via Libya, with an estimated 80% of them being victims of trafficking. At a recent event held by CARE and Women for Refugee Women, a refugee woman from sub-Saharan Africa told us that “no woman passed through the Sahara to Libya without being raped”.
Inconsistency in UK government policies
Although DFID recently approved a new fund addressing the needs of women and girls in the UK-funded response to the refugee situation in Europe, there is arguably an inconsistency between Home Office policies aimed at closing down the safe and legal routes for refugees to reach the UK, and DFID policy and funding aimed at alleviating the suffering this causes those same refugees.
Are governments doing enough to protect refugee children?
After fleeing from conflict and poverty and having been threatened with horrific abuse on their journeys, girl refugees are often detained in camps in squalid and unsafe conditions. They have to contend with cramped accommodation mixing minors and adults, non-segregated bathrooms and a constant risk of physical and sexual abuse. It is then easy to understand why many unaccompanied refugee children run away from camps and shelters, distrusting state authorities to protect them.
In January 2016, Europol warned governments that an alarming number of children refugees registered with European states had disappeared from camps and shelters and probably fallen into the hands of child traffickers. Although Europol estimated this number at 10,000, there is no telling what the reality is. In this context, unaccompanied girls are easy pickings for traffickers – often destined for sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.
Government must act on its commitments
Faced with all of this, it is surprising to learn that the British government could – and should – act to prevent these horrors. Under the Dublin regulations the UK must take in unaccompanied children that have a family member in the UK – even more striking, the Dubs amendment voted in the spring allows all unaccompanied minors that have reached Europe to apply to live in the UK. During an interview at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister reiterated on air that injustice, child sexual exploitation and modern slavery were issues closest to her heart, making current government inaction all the more baffling.
Over recent years, CARE supported three national anti-trafficking networks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia with a total membership of 44 women’s organisations – initiatives which achieved a lot in terms of support to local efforts by women activists and government institutions to tackle modern slavery. However, both in the region and in the UK, we need government policies and actions that go to the heart of the issue.
Let’s not forget ‘the invisible girls’
Despite repeated commitments to end modern slavery, children and especially girls do not seem to be the main target groups of government policy. As a signatory to the UN Convention to the Rights of the Child, the UK has international legal obligations to protect children, legal obligations that are reciprocated in its own statutes. But instead of being afforded this special protection, unaccompanied refugee children are often treated like adults – with distrust and sometimes even disdain.
It is a fact that every single unaccompanied refugee child, girl and boy, is at risk of modern slavery. But on this International Day of the Girl, let’s not forget the invisible girls, left out of programming and policies and every day disappearing to sexual exploitation and other modern slavery horrors.
In Theresa May’s own words, “a vision is nothing without the determination to see it through”. Today, CARE is calling on the government to make good on its promises to take in vulnerable unaccompanied children and protect all children from exploitation. The government’s own commitments to end modern slavery must be acted upon; unaccompanied girls fleeing conflict, poverty and gender-based violence should not be last in line.
